Formalizing Bialgebraic Semantics in PVS 6.0

Both operational and denotational semantics are prominent approaches for reasoning about properties of programs and programming languages. In the categorical framework developed by Turi and Plotkin both styles of semantics are unified using a single, syntax independent format, known as GSOS, in which the operational rules of a language are specified. From this format, the operational and denotational semantics are derived. The approach of Turi and Plotkin is based on the categorical notion of bialgebras. In this paper we specify this work in the theorem prover PVS , and prove the adequacy theorem of this formalization. One of our goals is to investigate whether PVS is adequately suited for formalizing metatheory. Indeed, our experiments show that the original categorical framework can be formalized conveniently. Additionally, we present a GSOS specification for the simple imperative programming language While, and execute the derived semantics for a small example program. 1998 ACM Subject Classification F.4.1 Mathematical Logic, F.3.2 Semantics of Programming Languages